Bishops Delay Women’s Issue Pastoral Letter

The U.S. Roman Catholic bishops Thursday postponed indefinitely a vote on a controversial pastoral letter about women’s concerns in the face of dissatisfaction by women’s groups and several bishops and a suggestion by the Vatican that foreign bishops be consul t ed,

Although the bishops have struggled for seven years to make a sympathetic statement on women’s concerns while stopping short of recommending female priests, both liberal and conservative Catholic groups have raised objections.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a national body of 800 nuns who head religious orders, last month applauded the letter’s explication of the “sin of sexism,” but otherwise said the letter was inadequate on matters of equality in the church.

At the same time, Catholic conservatives have accused the bishops of embracing a feminist agenda by, among other things, urging that women serve as altar girls at Masses.

Drafts of the wide-ranging letter have attempted to improve the status of women in the church and society. The last draft emphasized that the ban against artificial means of birth control should not be lifted, another point that had angered some women’s groups.

Instead of the American bishops voting, as planned, on a final draft of the pastoral letter at their annual November meeting, Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk of Cincinnati announced in Washington that the bishops’ 50-member administrative committee “now sees the need for more time, and more consultation, before the project reaches a conclusion.”

Bishop Joseph Imesch of Joliet, Ill., chairman of the committee drafting the letter, reached by telephone Thursday, said that a pastoral letter may yet be adopted.

“A number of dioceses say, ‘Don’t publish it,’ ” Imesch said. But he added that only 40 of 185 U.S. dioceses have sent in written reactions to the second draft released last April.

A spokeswoman for a group that advocates women’s ordination said that the document’s contradictions may have doomed it. “Our reading is that it is dead in the water,” said Ruth Fitzpatrick, coordinator of the 4,000-member Women’s Ordination Conference.

Pilarczyk, who is president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, did not refer in his announcement Thursday to opponents of the document. Eight bishops recently asked that it be either scrapped or postponed indefinitely, but Auxiliary Bishop P. Francis Murphy of Baltimore, who was one of the eight, said Thursday he was pleased with the delay.